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Mocrosoft sales in Kazakhstan and in Central Asia in 2007 fiscal year (July 2006 - June 2007) rose 76% as compared to the previous fiscal year, Aidar Dauletov,the general director of Microsoft Kazakhstan said. "Our sales in the past fiscal year increased by 76% as compared to the pervious year. Kazakhstan accounts for 95%,Uzbekistan for 2%,Kyrgyzstan - for 2% and Tajikistan - for 1%," he said at a press conference in Almaty. According to his data,"sales in the corporate sector increased by 54%,the sales in the small and medium business sector were 37% up,sales of software updates were 119% up." Speaking about the company's plans for the next year,Dauletov said that its regional office is planning to launch Kazakh-language versions of Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007,the most popular Microsoft products." Microsoft has been operating in Kazakhstan since the end of 2002. During the last fiscal year Microsoft opened its Innovation Center in the Alatau TechnoPark in the vicinity of Almaty. Source:Interfax 10/16/2007 See also comparison to previous article in our blog of 4.23.2007 . Comment: It is important to notice this development as Microsoft encounters serious problems of protection of intellectual property rights, particularly, unlicensed use of its software in all Central Asian countries.

Since the beginning of 2007, the number of mobile phone users in Uzbekistan increased up to 68,3%, and by 10.01.20 made up 4577,0 users. The general speed of access to international information networks is 242,5 Mbit/s. Estimated number of Internet users increased to 1.9 million, which comprises 72 users per 1000 citizens. Reported by UzACI. Link to article in Russian: http://www.aci.uz/ru/news/uzaci/article/392/

To follow up on our previous post about Turkmenistan government's official website, Altyn Asyr (The Golden Age), decision to allow comments on its website. On October 12, just two days after initiating the new feature, it vanished from the Turkmen, Russian, and English versions of the website- reports RFE/RL. There was no explanation on the website about the removal of the responses by readers. Some 15 comments had been posted to the site before the feature disappeared. Several of the comments offered mild criticism of former President Saparmurat Niyazov and one of them called on President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov to release all political prisoners held in Turkmen prisons. Source RFE/RL 10/15/2007. Link to article: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/10/34CFBC93-E10B-4F42-832E-5D2311ECF0B4.html Comment: I observe that the actual layout of the site was also changed. Instead of the 'Navigation of the site' block, which among other features included the comment component, there is a weather forecast from Turkemengidromet. Other features from the block are repositioned on the main page. The news archive is now not available. However, it seems that the site is under modification and we might expect more changes.

Kazakhstan has blocked four opposition news websites. Media freedom advocates call it "political censorship" and claim to be illegal. Whereas, Kazakh authorities state that the causes are: improper registration for one website whose server is located in France and the possible risk of contagion by a computer viral attack from its U.S.-based host. The article does not name the websites that were blocked. But it cites the website operators, who link the closures of their websites to their publications that accuse Kazakh officials in wrongdoing. This in turn might damage Kazakhstan's image ahead of its bid next month to chair the OSCE, which will be decided at the end of November. The article also makes a connection to the government censorship of the opposition voice. As all the blocked sites have posted comments about the government attack on the former Kazakh top official, Rakhat Aliev, who publicly denounced the new constitutional amendment regarding presidential post and accusing President Nazarbaev with election irregularities in 2005. He is now sought by Kazakh police. Source: RFE/RL 10/24/2007. Link to article: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/10/AA1D31AC-FA27-4E4E-AC55-E79063B9872A.html

Official Turkmen website Altyn Asyr (The Golden Age) recently added a new feature that allows readers to post comments to articles. The RFE/RL article assesses the new feature to be a dramatic shift in a country where the government strictly controls all media and public dissent is not allowed. The website, which was launched about two years ago in Russian, which now, features English and Turkmen, publishes news articles about the national government and local news. RFE/RL notes that the move to allow comments to be posted coincides with a trip to Turkmenistan by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Elsa Vidal, the head of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Eurasia Desk, told RFE/RL that RSF welcomed the development, expressed a 'great surprise' and interpreted it as a 'good sign' in regards the reforms for freedom of expression. 'But nevertheless, it is too early to say whether this sign will lead to a bigger liberalization of information in Turkmenistan. We very deeply hope that it will and that President Berdymukhammedov will commence his reform of the country.'- noted Vidal. Vidal says the Internet cafes in Ashgabat are not as free as they are in most other countries. She says you must register your identity and that there are filters on the web browsers that prevent many websites from being accessed by the user. 'These are, nevertheless, big changes [with the Internet] compared with [President Saparmurat] Niyazov's era,' she says. Source: RFE/RL, Oct 11, 2007 Link to article: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/10/a0e5fac2-c408-4053-a596-0e5b01e14840.html

Launching the distribution of the Nokia phones with Uzbek language was main achievement of the company in Uzbekistan mobile phone market said head of regional office of Nokia Customer and Market Operations in Kazakhstan and Central Asia - Yevgeniy Vladimirov. In his interview to online magazine Infocom he commented on the situation of Nokia mobile phone market in Uzbekistan. Beginning May 2007 budget models of Nokia mobile phones 1110i, 1112, 1600, 2310, 2610, 2626 distributed in Uzbekistan are adjusted to local language. And more are to follow. He also stated that classic “Connect” category of Nokia phones, which includes basic functions that reflect the easy use principle, are popular among the local mobile phone users. In addition, unlike in US or Europe, for users in Uzbekistan and overall CIS countries the gender division among the female and male phones is very important. Source: InfoCOM.UZ, 11-07-2007. Link to article in Russian: http://ru.infocom.uz/more.php?id=2642_0_1_0_M15

This article published in Kazakh press discusses the opportunities of financial earnings through Internet. But the main interest for our research was the assessment of Internet market in Kazakhstan by the director of local Kazakhstan search website. Although there are no accurate counts but according to specialists the number of Internet users in Kazakhstan varies from 400 thousands to 1,5 million users. In comparison with other CIS states the Internet use in the country is very low. Among the countries of the CIS and East Europe Russia occupies the first place with more than 21 million Internet users. This index allowed Russia to occupy the 11th place in the rating of the internet countries. In the second place is Ukraine with 4,5 million Internet users. Even Belorussia, with a total of about ten million people, is ahead of Kazakhstan (15 mln people) with 3,39 million users of global network. - The main problem, which removes Kazakhstan from the remaining developed world if not to the decades, then by several years is this weak proliferation of Internet among population, - explains technical director of “Portex Of Media”, (portex.kz is a local search website in Kazakhstan), Sergey Maximov: - “Simply stated, the large part of the population does not have not only the access into the global network, but also simply personal computer.”It is generally recognized that the main engine of all Internet projects today became the presence of the definite level of demand and high interest from the side of users.- The basic reason for connection to the global network in Kazakhstan, says Sergey Maximov, is now the presence in family of teenager or student, to whom this is necessary for the education. Moreover, for Kazakhstan citizen it is easier and more interesting to go online to any Russian search website as unfortunately, we do not have a comparable analog in our country yet - says Sergey Maximov.Even though the market of the Internet is one of three most dynamically developing segments of telecommunication market Kazakhstan, together with mobile connection and cable TV. Thus, average size of expenditures for Internet for one user in 2005 composed 1050 tenge per month for the physical persons about 18 000 tenge for the juridical. An increase in the expenditures is 10-15 percent per year. At the same time level of an increase in the welfare of the population of Kazakhstan is today yet insufficient for the development of the technologies, connected with the Internet. Source: Express K. Link to article in Russian: http://www.express-k.kz/show_article.php?art_id=12175

Computer gamer from Uzbekistan Doniyor Shamuzafarov earns the fifth place in the final championship of the World Cyber Games 2007 in Seattle. He becomes one of the worlds 16 top gamers in this category. Out of 9 gamers only 6 could receive US visas and thus, represent the country in two gaming categories instead of 5 planned - Need for Speed™ Carbon by Doniyor Shamuzafarov, and team ProdigY in Half-Life™: Counter-Strike 1.6. Source Infocom.uz Link to article in Russian: http://ru.infocom.uz/more.php?id=2792_0_1_0_M7

The Cabinet of Ministers of Uzbekistan has held a meeting on the results of the socio-economic development of the Information and Communication Technology Complex over the three quarters of this year. It was noted that at the end of the reporting period, the number of mobile users reached 4.52 million, and the number of Internet users exceeded 1.9 million. Source: UzReport. 10/08/07. Link to article: http://business.uzreport.com/uzb.cgi?lan=e&id=38155

Business information portal UzReport.com won the first place in the "Best periodical website" category of the National UZ Domain Internet Festival in Uzbekistan. The festival was held to support development of internet resources and services in the UZ domain. Uzbek Agency for Communication and Informatization (UzACI), UZINFOCOM - centre for development and introduction of computer and information technologies, and infoCOM.UZ magazine were the organizers of the event. The festival was held in several stages starting on August 1. The total number of participants in the contest was 617. Awards were given for the best website in the field of science and education, culture and art, sports, tourism, leisure and tours, medicine and healthcare, network services and e-trade. Also among the winners were the best sites of traditional media, state bodies, sites for the youth, the best corporate site, personal web page, the best site in state (Uzbek) language and the best blogger on UzNet. Secretary General ITU Hamadun Ture, who was visiting Uzbekistan, attended the event and congratulated the participants. "It is very important that the number of people using the World Wide Web is growing in Uzbekistan. Especially noteworthy is the fact that today there are more than 2.5 million internet users in the country. Let me congratulate on behalf of ITU all the winners of UZ domain Internet festival," he said. Source: UzReport, link to article:http://au.biz.yahoo.com/071004/17/1fesq.html

President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov received Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Hamadun Ture at Oqsaroy residence. During the conversation, the sides exchanged opinions on further expansion of cooperation of Uzbekistan with ITU, solution of problems of information safety and other issues of mutual interest. Hamadun Ture visited Uzbekistan to participate in the International Summit on Information-Communication technologies, which concluded the ICT Week held in Tashkent in October. Source: National Information Agency UzA

Information and Communication Technologies Week starts in Uzbekistan The Information and Communication Technologies Week, InfoCom 2007 was held on September 24 – 28 in Tashkent. The organizers of the week are the Cabinet’s Coordination Council for ICT Development, the Legislative Chamber’s Committee for ICT, the Uzbek Agency for Communication and Information, UNDP’s ICT Policy project and the IT Association of Uzbekistan. Among the week’s events are the international conference on IT development in Asia (ITPA 2007), the national exhibition ICTExpo 2007, the forum on use of ICT in mass media, third Central Asian conference on the Internet and new communication technologies (ICI 2007), ICT summit and the Internet Festival. Source: UzA.uz More information about ICT Week and ICT Summit in Tashkent here: http://summit2007.ictp.uz/en/ictweek